Chris Hatton’s Projects

Retrofit 1. To provide (a jet, automobile, computer, or factory, for example) with parts, devices, or equipment not in existence or available at the time of original manufacture.

I have just finished replacing the mechanical hard disc in my Compaq Evo n610c laptop with a Mtron Mobi 3000 SSD drive. Having used it for just a few hours, I can safely say it was worth it - the increase in responsiveness under Ubuntu Linux is immediately obvious from first boot.

Here is a brief account of the upgrade for the benefit of anyone thinking of doing the same: particularly owners of the Compaq n610 - or laptops of a similar era - which can be given a whole new lease of performance despite being products that are firmly into their middle age…

Never one to make it easy on myself, I bought a 1.8″ ZIF size drive, instead of the standard 2.5″ IDE that the Compaq takes (I was able to find it a fair bit cheaper on eBay). While I realised this woud require a little modification to fit the drive caddy, I han’t anticipated that because of the Compaqs very flimsy caddy design, I would be physically unable to apply the pressure needed to connect the IDE socket deep inside the machine, without there being a full size drive in it.

One bent & twisted caddy later, I downloaded the Compaq Service manual to get straight to the heart of the matter. I would recommend anyone opening their laptop to search for a service manual first; opening a laptop isn’t nearly as obvious and predictable as a desktop machine; they are dense, layered affairs, with clips and screws that need to be removed and replaced in a precise order to avoid snapping or stressing some as yet unrevealed structure. I can’t speak for other manufacturers, but it is to Compaqs credit that they make these manual publicly available.

So, here we go… full access to the hard drive bay required complete disassembly of the laptop, even the screen.

With bay now open, the ZIF drive was put in position. I constructed a crude but effective cradle from slot-together cardboard pieces, there are 3 cardboard ‘ribs’ running under the drive and it is held quite securely in position. The small PCB which I am holding is a ZIF to IDE adapter, to which I have also attached the proprietary socket part of the original caddy. Be careful when attaching a ZIF ribbon cable: the design of the ZIF slots appears to have pins which contact the cable both top and bottom, where in fact only one side is the correct, active orientation. Refer to any guides at hand if you are doing this as one mistake here could cause electrical damage and cost you that lovely new expensive SSD.

The next image shows the underside of the motherboard, held over the bottom half of the laptop case. Only in this position could the ZIF/IDE adapter board be attached to the proprietary hard drive connector on the motherboard. The adapter board is very light and is sufficiently held on by this connector alone.

The motherboard is lowered into position; some last-centimeter-gap poking with a biro is required to persuade the fairly taut ZIF ribbon to flex into the space behind the drive, rather than be fatally crushed between it and the motherboard.

With the motherboard secured back over the bay, the still dismembered laptop is powered up to ensure the drive is compatible, and has a proper electrical connection, before the slightly lengthy process of reassembling the machine. Note the installation of Ubuntu in progress

Performance and other notes to be amended…

Here is a Java pet project I’ve been working on, partly out of an interest in procedural graphics but mainly just for some good old Java practice and to make the train journeys go a bit faster:

Tree2DApplet

Theres still a number of glaring bugs in the UI code, which I’ll be fixing, but its ready for an idle play. Random feature requests welcome!

The Applet will prompt you to confirm a security certificate since it allows saving of images and vector files to your local hard drive.

Wondering what I’m doing that could be more important than updating this site? Get the live lowdown

My first iPhone App, on behalf of Pocket PT, has now been released for sale on the AppStore. Essentially a bundle of videos, with text description pages plus a page updated from the web, it is simple enough by coding standards - but an important maiden journey through Apples not-so-straightforward submission process, paving the way for more advanced apps. Here’s a link to the iTunes product page: Swiss Ball Exercises with Pocket PT

Having spent over 4 years in the DVD authoring business, and pretty much explored all the technical possibilities the platform has to offer, I have decided to leave Metropolis and join a new technology company. Pocket Innovation are developing Pocket PT as the next generation in health and fitness sales and service - providing a three tiered online Personal Training solution: direct to customers, for Personal Trainers to manage their clients, and also a back end designed to enable gyms and health clubs to manage and retain members effectively. I am working with web technologies to develop and ‘white label’ our current site at www.pocketpt.co.uk. I am also responsible for developing opportunities for our brand in the mobile arena, with plans to develop a range of supporting iPhone and Mobile Java apps to accompany the site.

One of those staple tools that comes in handy time and again, the whole project search and replace. This script works through all text layers in all comps of your AE project. I have been using this to speed up reversioning of text and graphic screens for different languages.

Download from the scripts page.

Clearing the cache has repaired phpBB3 and the site is now fully functioning again. I still intend moving the site to a co-located server soon for increased reliability.

NOTE: Thanks to a kind offer from a forum member, I am currently making arrangements for bdjforum to be moved to a co-located server to ensure future reliability. More news to follow…

Unfortunately the server ran out of space a few days back and caused Ubuntu to crash. Clearing space quickly bought everything back up except bdjforum. I am unsure what the problem is at the moment, having taken the following actions so far:

• Standard checks and repairs on the mySQL database, which showed no errors.
• Checked the Apache2 and PHP logs which again show no errors.
• Added some debug output to index.php to confirm that it is being processed, which it is.

At the moment phpBB3 is merely giving blank output. I have backed up the database and am trying to repair the forum as my first priority, even if this means a reinstall over the weekend. I know this will be an inconvenience to some daily users, so I will keep you posted.

The next thing I will try is clearing the phpBB3 cache folders which may have cached blank or truncated output due to the previous lack of space. If anyone has any suggestions I am keen to hear them…

This webserver installation was moved to another hardware platform for the second time - now a 2.4Ghz Celeron - to improve response times. The internet upstream was also upgraded from ADSL 512Kbps to Cable 768Kbps. Page loads have shown a marked improvement.

Ubuntu once again proved itself as a hardy operating system, requiring only an edit to the GRUB boot settings, and a re-run of the X-Server configuration, to take account of the new graphics hardware.

With the recent victory of Blu-ray in the HD format war, it is clear that demand for Blu-ray Java (BDJ) development will increase. Home entertainment companies will be looking to wow consumers not only with high quality video, but also new features made possible by fully programmable graphics layers, internet connectivity and persistent storage.

As with all technical developments, there are many questions to be answered, and ‘best practice’ methods yet to be found. I have created a new forum for aspiring BD-J developers so that we can share information and experiences towards creating exciting applications that will help consumers make the best of their new kit.

www.bdjforum.com